I am close to moving all of my assets to Vanguard. I have a couple of funds at Schwab due to possible doomsday scenarios, but after reading up on it, it looks like there isn't much to worry about by using only one mutual fund family. There are many protections in place.

neomutiny06 wrote:I am close to moving all of my assets to Vanguard. I have a couple of funds at Schwab due to possible doomsday scenarios, but after reading up on it, it looks like there isn't much to worry about by using only one mutual fund family. There are many protections in place.

Do you mean taxable funds? Then yes, all my taxable funds are at Vanguard. My 401k is through Schwab.

By choice we have 529s with other providers although we use Vanguard funds in some cases.

I'm a little more comfortable having some assets at 3 or 4 providers, whether it is rational or not. i have no specific fears of Vanguard, just like to diversify. But 60% of my stocks are international so maybe I'm just crazy.

Do you mean investing in Vanguard funds or keeping one's assets at Vanguard? That is two separate things. It is not even necessarily the case that a person investing at Vanguard invests with Vanguard. I suspect there are quite a few people on the forum who invest nearly 100% with Vanguard and don't hold a penny at Vanguard. Directed brokerage accounts in 401k's allow this even if the plan itself does not have Vanguard funds.

My non-401k investments are all at Vanguard. The 401k is at Fidelity. I am starting a new job on January 3 and will probably rollover the 401k into my Vanguard IRA, for simplicity and because the 401k investment options are not great, e.g. only one index fund is available.

Vanguard, Fidelity, DFA and Black Rock
But I would not have any problem being 100% Vanguard. The risks of Vanguard vs adding some percent to Fidelity is far less than other risks. I just find the whole Vanguard is mother; Vanguard is father a little extreme.

I currently invest solely in Vanguard ETFs at Vanguard in an IRA and a taxable account. They were a solid custodian as I started investing and I have few complaints.

For the following 4 reasons I will be moving to Merrill Edge: 1) Vanguard has screwed up my cost basis accounting and takes weeks to resolve the issue, removing the ability to do end of year tax planning 2) Merrill edge is paying me to move my assets there and Vanguard of course does not do this 3) Merrill will allow me more fund options with no commissions (30 free per month) which will be helpful for slicing and dicing as well as for tax loss harvesting 4) credit card preferred rewards there beat the Citi double cash card.

It is prudent for investors to be aware of the deals available on the market for them.

"To play the stock market is to play musical chairs under the chord progression of a bid-ask spread."

Vanguard is great for your plain vanilla S&P 500 and Total stock market. If you are doing treasuries, I'd just use CDs outside of vanguard. However, if you tilt to value, small, momentum, etc. or want screening for some of those factors, they aren't the optimal choice. I'm not going to say they are terrible but DFA in particular and iShares are much better. I suspect we'll also be talking about AQR more in the future as well.

I combined everything* into Vanguard for simplicity of management/tracking/taxes. I have zero qualms worrying everything is in one basket, I can't imagine a scenario where Vanguard disappears and takes our assets with it. And if that did happen, it would probably be a calamity on a scale that wiped out all your other accounts too.

I would worry about being totally invested in one asset (like one stock) or even one asset class or sector, but having a diversified portfolio at a single brokerage institution doesn't worry me. Especially when Vanguard is not a speculator that is prone to being wiped out by making some risky financial bet.

* Meaning almost all my investible assets, but not including I-Bonds held directly, checking/savings accounts/CDs, or my HSA.

If you're worried about the going out of business or some other catastrophe, don't. Vanguard has a mutual structure so each fund is separately owned by the share holders. Even if the main part of vanguard went down, the funds would remain.

Vanguard's customer service and inability deal with my firm's compliance requirements made it too painful to have any assets there. I'm owning less and less Vanguard funds these days, so moving everything out wasn't a big deal.

I have accounts at scottrade, fidelity, tdameritrade, and merrill edge and move money around to play the promo game. Also, I am kind of shopping for the best place to consolidate to when I don't feel like going for promos. I received $4k in promos this year which wouldn't be worth bothering with for a lot of people, but worth it to me especially as a way of getting more money into tax deferred.

neomutiny06 wrote:I am close to moving all of my assets to Vanguard. I have a couple of funds at Schwab due to possible doomsday scenarios, but after reading up on it, it looks like there isn't much to worry about by using only one mutual fund family. There are many protections in place.

neomutiny06:

In 1986 we moved all our securities from Merrill Lynch to Vanguard. It was the best financial decision we ever made.

Currently 99.66 % Vanguard with joint taxable, 2 roth iras, and 401K with almost all in Vanguard 2010 target fund. The only exception is a small amount in Dodge and Cox Foreign (DODFX) I kept since the fund is now closed. I just can't seem to sell that fund, an attachment of sorts.

Dan

The market is the most efficient mechanism anywhere in the world for transferring wealth from impatient people to patient people.” |
— Warren Buffett

In 1986 we moved all our securities from Merrill Lynch to Vanguard. It was the best financial decision we ever made.

Happy Holidays!
Taylor

And,Taylor, you are the main reason that I started moving everything to Vanguard in 1999.

Bogleheads:

These are 12 reasons Sheepdog and I have all our securities with Vanguard:

1. One familiar statement.
2. Less paperwork.
3. Easier tax preparation.
4. Avoidance of low-balance and other small fees.
5. It's much easier to learn only one company's policies, fees, regulations, etc.
6. With larger holdings it may be possible to qualify for lower costs and premium services (Voyager, Admiral, Flagship).
7. Rebalancing and exchanges are easier.
8. A loyal customer is appreciated and usually treated better.
9. Less chance of errors.
10. Knowledge that Vanguard's fine reputation and low-costs are always working for us.
11. More free time for ourselves.
12. In event of death or disability, it will be much easier for others.

401k because that's up to my employer
HSA because it's better than I've found available from other custodians when balancing fees vs. investment options
Taxable because I was concerned/annoyed by Vanguard's inability to display correct cost basis information on the website. Fidelity seems to have much better technology around tracking all my DCA lots.

100 percent Vanguard after a few years of paying crazy high fees for virtually no service at Merrill Lynch. When I went to close my account at Merrill -- an account which at that time was worth more than $10 million -- my Merrill account rep said, "I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with your account." Enough said.